Residents of St. Paul’s St. Anthony Park could crisply hear the play-by-play of a well-thrown forward pass at the University of Minnesota’s new football stadium Saturday night.

That was the problem. They weren’t in the stadium on the university’s east bank in southeast Minneapolis. They were in their own back yards and in their homes — in St. Paul. In some cases, a few miles or more away.

Phil Carlson, who lives nearly two miles from the stadium, three blocks west of the student center on the university’s St. Paul campus, said he was stunned when he heard the clarity of the announcer’s tones at the Gopher’s home opener as he worked in his yard. “It sounds like the voice of God from the treetops right in the next block. I don’t want to be overdramatic, but it was stunning.”

St. Anthony Park residents are accustomed to noise. Their neighborhood borders the State Fairgrounds on the east and southeast Minneapolis on the west and is adjacent to the university’s St. Paul campus. Midway Stadium and its concerts are within earshot.

Carlson, who has lived in the neighborhood through two State Fairs, said that noise hasn’t bothered him. Concerts in the grandstand are background noise, he said. But the play-by-play emitted from a sound system that includes 799 speakers at the Gophers’ TCF Bank Stadium was an unexpected and unpleasant new source.

“Living here in the middle of city is part of what we signed up for,” he said. “We know we’re living in the city, but come on, two miles away!”

An online neighborhood forum quickly drew comments over the weekend from unhappy residents complaining about the noise and the announcer’s distinguishable words: “I go to the back deck to sit, and I can still hear and understand that man’s hollering. The sound of the crowd is not so bad … only occasionally a low roar, one could work on imagining that it is the sound of the sea, but this loud, yelling man … we must stop him,” wrote St. Anthony resident Sue Conner.

Her husband, Sherman Eagles, characterized the sound level as akin to that of a car sitting in front of his house with the stereo fully cranked up and the windows down. “Even inside the house, it was loud.”

When the Gophers stadium was being built, there was neighborhood concern about traffic and possible parking issues, but Eagles said he wasn’t aware of any discussion about possible noise from the stadium traveling into the neighborhood.

University spokesman Daniel Wolter said officials would review complaints about the new stadium this week. “All aspects of stadium operations will be discussed this week to find opportunities for improvement,” Wolter wrote in an e-mail, adding that the university has had extensive interaction with the surrounding neighborhoods identifying concerns about the new stadium and working to address those concerns.

Not everyone was so vexed about the noise level. Emma Quinlan Connolly for one, though more of a baseball fan than football, enjoyed sitting outside at a friend’s house in St. Anthony Park, listening to the action while the men were inside watching the game on TV.

“We were outside and could hear the score and the play-by-play,” she said. “I was surprised at how crystal clear it was. It wasn’t just muffled noise. We liked that we didn’t have to go inside.”

She called her neighbors’ reaction overdramatic and said she is growing tired of the constant complaints — from road construction to Fair noise. The latest drama about the new stadium was over the top, she said. “For me, it was the last straw,” she said. “Like, get over yourself. We live in the city; just deal with it.”

In the neighborhood forum, she wrote: “I guess I would understand your complaints a little more if we were all in Woodbury or Eagan, but we’re not. We choose to live in an urban community. I don’t love football either; I would much rather hear baseball stats. Nothing is perfect. If you are looking for a quiet, urban place to live … well I’m not sure that exists.”

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